"5000 Fans Theory was first floated by Brian Austin Whitney, founder of Just Plain Folks, in one of his monthly newsletters. Brian pointed out that an artist who has 5000 hardcore fans to give him or her $20 each year — be if from CDs, ticket sales, merchandise, donations, whatever — stands to make $100K per year, more than enough to quit the day job and still have health insurance and a decent car.

Now, 5000 is a big number, but not that big. That's like, what, one-eighth of an average baseball stadium? And you might not even need that many. Here's an exercise: take your own salary, pre-taxes, and divide it by 20. If you were to quit your job right now and start living as a full-time musician, poet or author, that's how many fans you'd need, spending $20 each year to support your art. So, if you're making $30K yearly, you'd need 1500 paying fans each year to replace your salary. And it gets better if you're willing to take a pay cut. In Washington state, where I live, a person working for minimum wage would only need around 700 paying fans. As Hobbit sez, there are a lot of people working for minimum wage doing stuff they hate."

The BCR salutes its 5000 fans, both real, imaginary, and on-staff.